The Obama administration has unveiled a new policy that effectively grants U.S. citizenship to foreign women in exchange for acting as surrogate mothers for U.S. couples or selling their eggs to American women.

The new policy guidance, announced on Tuesday, redefines the terms “mother” and “father” in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

“A 'natural mother' or 'natural father' is a genetic parent or gestational parent,” the new policy says. This “includes a non-genetic gestational mother if she is the legal parent at the time of birth.”

By bearing the child of an American couple, the mother is then placed at the front of the line when applying for U.S. citizenship.

“A gestational mother has a petitionable relationship without a genetic relationship to the child, as long as she is also the child’s legal parent at the time of birth,” the policy says.

Defining the surrogate mother as part of a citizen's family confers tremendous advantages if she wishes to immigrate to the United States, effectively granting the most coveted status in the world – U.S. citizenship – to her and, in time, to her entire family.

The 1965 Immigration Act drastically changed U.S. immigration policy. Formally known as the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, the bill gave preferential immigration status to anyone related to a U.S. citizen in the name of “family reunification.” Once a family member becomes a naturalized citizen, he or she becomes eligible for taxpayer-subsidized welfare programs and may in turn send for more extended family members, a process known as “chain migration.”

"This change in policy only furthers the buying and selling of children, to the buying and selling of U.S. citizenship,” Jennifer Lahl, president of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, told LifeSiteNews. “The right policy course for the U.S. to take is to stop surrogacy now, for the protection of women and children.”

“Sadly, this decision by the Obama administration just opens the flood gates," Lahl said.

One donor reported having no problems during the process. However, “Six months later my body began to fail me. I had always been a healthy and active woman, but suddenly I was crippled by pain and unable to live the life I had once enjoyed.”

The new policy, which was developed jointly by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department, also clarifies that American women who hire foreign women as surrogates – or who sell their eggs to foreign couples – will confer their U.S. citizenship on the child.